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Figuring Out What Really Happened to Glory and OCO

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
August 4, 2017
Filed under , ,
Figuring Out What Really Happened to Glory and OCO

After failed space flights, NASA investigation leads to Portland, The Oregonian
“Twice in the past decade, NASA launched unmanned spacecraft ferrying advanced satellites into Earth’s orbit as part of a mission that could offer researchers an unprecedented new source of data on climate change. But the satellites failed to deploy and, within minutes, NASA’s $550 million investment and years of work vaporized in fiery balls of space junk. NASA has been investigating ever since. Now the inquiry has led to a nondescript industrial building in Northeast Portland, where a company called Sapa Extrusions acknowledges it has been dealing in bad aluminum and bad faith for as long as two decades.”
NASA Creates Glory Satellite Mishap Investigation Board, earlier post
“NASA’s Glory mission ended Friday after the spacecraft failed to reach orbit following its launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. NASA has begun the process of creating a Mishap Investigation Board to evaluate the cause of the failure. Telemetry indicated the fairing, a protective shell atop the satellite’s Taurus XL rocket, did not separate as expected. The launch proceeded as planned from its liftoff at 5:09 a.m. EST through the ignition of the Taurus XL’s second stage. However, the fairing failure occurred during the second stage engine burn. It is likely the spacecraft fell into the South Pacific, although the exact location is not yet known. NASA’s previous launch attempt of an Earth science spacecraft, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory onboard a Taurus XL on Feb. 24, 2009, also failed to reach orbit when the fairing did not separate.”

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16 responses to “Figuring Out What Really Happened to Glory and OCO”

  1. Eric says:
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    It is sad, but this kind of stuff really doesn’t surprise me anymore. I would like to think that most people would not take part in activity like this. It is hard to believe that the people involved wouldn’t know what the possible consequences of falsifying test results could be. You have to wonder if some substandard Aluminum didn’t result in deaths somewhere. I respect the investigators for finding this.

    • fcrary says:
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      The full story reports some of the other customers. A more mundane use for the aluminum in question was highway guard rails. Someone retested them and decided they were ok. But, yes, there was a real potential for fatalities from this.

  2. passinglurker says:
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    Wait bad faith as in knowingly selling a bad product or bad faith as in knowingly sabotaging earth science satellites?

  3. Bob Mahoney says:
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    All part of the Administration’s plan to eliminate climate change data.

    • Oscar_Femur says:
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      Both of these failed missions were during the Obama administration.

      • kcowing says:
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        OK and what did “the Obama Administration” have to do with the “failed missions”. Loons like you want to infer blame where there is none.

        • fcrary says:
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          I think he’s just saying that the current administration (who might want to eliminate climate change data) had absolutely nothing to do with launch failures in 2009 and 2011.

        • Oscar_Femur says:
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          Calling me a “loon” for stating something factually correct seems a bit over the top. Why isn’t Mr. Mahoney a “loon” for implying the Trump administration had something to do with the failures?

          I suppose name-calling is reserved for the page owner.

          And yes, I know, I can stop reading your page if I don’t like it.

          • fcrary says:
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            The failures occurred in 2009 and 2011. There was no Trump administration at that time. Unless you are enough of a loon to invoke time travel, the Trump administration could not have been involved.

  4. Daniel Woodard says:
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    It’s unfortunate that the basic principles of statistical quality control, originally codified by W. Edwards Deming during World War II, have been largely forgotten or ignored. The decline in ethical standards in engineering are equally disturbing. Purchasers of critical parts are well advised to take nothing on faith and do their own statistical quality control as part of acceptance testing.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      How do you do Deming-style work when N=1 (or close to that, anyway)? When the pieces are unique to a mission?

      • motorhead9999 says:
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        At least as I remember on shuttle, any parts we made out of stock material, a piece of each lot of material was manufactured into test samples and pulled to failure to verify the material was what they said it was.

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          I agree, proof tests are usually at the component or material level. In the case of the SpaceX strut failure, dozens of the stuts are used in each vehicle and SpaceX purchased hundreds of essentially identical components. After the failure SpaceX reproted that they had done proof tests and a substantial fraction of the parts had failed.

          The actual proof test varies with the application, but unless you test to failure a statistically appropriate number of times you have no assurance of what “100%” nondestructive testing is really telling you.

  5. Saturn1300 says:
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    So Orbital may have found out what happened.

  6. hikingmike says:
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    Son of a bitch. Do you think they can actually pin it on them? If so, #%@ them up! Kind of good to see they are part of a bigger multinational company. Might get something out of that.

    I wish I lived closer. I would stick some mission stickers on their door or something.

    “In Balius’ plea agreement, the Justice Department attorneys assert that Balius collected $51,412 in bonuses over the years, which were tied in part to production volume.”

    Reminds me of Wells Fargo. Institutionalized cheating. Get your performance bonus. Regular pay is possibly lower than it should be.